A Formal Description of Arabic Syntax in Definite Clause Grammar
H i s h a m E1-SllisMny
IBM Scientific Center, 56, Gameaat El-Doual EI-Arabeya St.
Mohandesseen, Cairo, Egypt
Abstract
Arabic has some special syntax features
which lead to complex syntax structures.
We have developed a formal description
of Arabic syntax in Definite Clause Gram-
mar. This grarnrnar is characterized by its
h i g h descriptive power due to its dual for-
mulation in terms of functions and in
terms of grammatical categories. The de-
veloped g r a m m a r has a high coverage of
Arabic l a n g u a g e and has context sensitive
capabilities. It is suitable for the advanced
applications of natural language process-
ing.
1o Introduction
Arabic has some features which lead to
comlpex syntax different from those of the
European languages. Moreover, Arabic
g r a m m a r exists cmly in a descriptive form
and there is no comprehensive formal rep~
resentation for it so far.
The few attempts to give a formal mod-
e~ for Arabic sentences were based on
transformational generative g r a m m a r -
[111, [2], [3] and o t h e r s - b u t some linguists
adopted more recent l i n g u i s t i c models
such as Lexical Functional G r a m m a r [4],
d e p e n d e n c y g r a m m a r [5] and functional
g r a m m a r 16].
Selecting a suitable g r a m m a r formalism
for Arabic and the formulation of the
g r a m m a r itself is the subject of a big de-
bate in the Arab countries nowadays. Our
descriptio:n of Arabic syntax in Definite
Clause G r a m m a r is different from the at-
tempts u n d e r t a k e n so far.
2. Deft,ire clat,se gram,,ar for Arabic
syntax
In this g r a m m a r , the arguments of non
terminals are used to hold special features
of Arabic words such as the definitely or
indefinitely d e t e r m i n e d feature of norms
which is essential to recognize m a n y
structures. Also, the ability of Definite
Clause G r a m m a r to provide a general
treatment of context sensitivity through
the proper use of a r g u m e n t s of non termi-
nals makes it easy to account for agree-
meats such as number, gender and person
agreements.
Another important characteristic of
l)efinite Clause Grammar, which suits Ar-
abic, is the possibility of imposing extra
conditions on the constituents of a phrase
which must be satisfied for a rule to be
valid [7].
3. The develol,ed /ormal g,'ammar
Due to the fact that there is IIO single
basic word order for Arabic sentences,
three basic sentence types were defined:
a. Nominal sentence: a sentence that does
not contain a verb or contains a verb
which follows the subject.
b. Verbal sentence: a sentence that con-
tains a verb which precedes the sub-
ject.
c. Sentences with special structures such
as vocative sentences.
Sentences are further classified func-
tionally and according to their modalities.
Larger sentences are also described in
this g r a m m a r by conjoining sentences or
e m b e d d i n g simpler sentences.
We have used the grammatical catego-
ries together with the functional roles to
define the syntactic structures. Grammati-
cal categories alone were considered not
sufficient to describe all the structures
345
since w o r d categories in Arabic are global-
ly classified into verbs, nominals and par-
ticles only. Nouns, adjectives and adverbs
for example are differentiated in tt'te sen-
tence according to their functions.
This dual formulation increases the de-
scriptive p o w e r of the grammar. In order
to use this dual formulation to define the
syntactic structures, some non standard
definitions of grammatical categories were
used.
A n o m i n a l sentence (ns) is defined for-
mally as c o m p o s e d from a 'mobtadaa'
phrase, mbp, and a predicate phrase,
predp:
ns(ns(MBP, PREDP)) -~ mbp (N,G,m,
-., MBP), predp (N,G,n,PREDP).
A m b p is d e f i n e d as a noun phrase (np)
that can have 'motaalkat' which are either
a prepositional phrase (PP) or adverbial.
A p r e d p can be one of the following:
a n o u n phrase that can have 'motaal-
kat'
a prepositional phrase or adverbial
- a sentence w h i c h can be :
- a verbal sentence
- a nominal s e n t e n c e (under certain
conditions).
Verbal sentences (vs) can be followed
by either a subject phrase, sp, or a subject
phrase and a c o m p l e m e n t phrase, cop:
vs(vs(VP))-~ vp(T,V,S,I',VP).
vs(vs(VP,SP,COP)) + vp(T,a,S,P,VP),
sp(-,-,S,-,P,SP),cop(M,COP),{M=<T}
cop(o,cop([ 1)) -~ I 1.
For verbs in the passive voice the sp is
replaced by 'naabfael' phrase (nsp), which
can be either a np or pp.
For non-terminal a r g u m e n t definitions
the reader is referred to sections 3.1.1.,
3.1.2 and 3.1.3. Tlle values of the argu-
m e n t s indicated above are: a for active
voice, n for indefinite determination, m
for definite d e t e r m i n a t i o n and - for accep-
tance of any value.
Verb phrases (vp) are defined as follows:
vp --~ (cop), (particle), verb, (cop).
346
whereas n o u n phrases (rip) are defined as
follows:
np -~ (particle), noutL (post-
moditiers).
Subject phrases are n o u n phrases
whereas c o m p l e m e n t phrases modify the
verbs and are one or m o r e n o u n phrases
(such as tile direct object) a n d / o r preposi-
tional phrases.
The cop category is used to cater for the
cases w h e r e the sp separates the verb
from some of its modifiers, which is a
characteristic of Arabic syntax.
Sentences with special structures haw,,
different structures which vary from one
case to anotller.
Sp and cop can be relative pllrases and
in some cases the p r e d p can precede the
mbp. Categories with no equivalent in
English are indicated b e t w e e n single
quotes and categories inside the brackets
are optional.
3.1. Non Terminal m g u , t e n t s
N o n - t e r m i n a l a r g u m e n t s are used to
hold features of Arabic w o r d s necessary
for recognizing some structures and for
allowing a g r e e m e n t s b e t w e e n the differ-
ent costituents of the sentence. A r g u m e n t s
are introduced in the lexical entries of
words and are inherited by the phrase in
which the words are constituents, h't this
grammar, a r g u m e n t s are defined as fol-
]OWS:
3.1.1. Arguments associated With verbs
T transitivity, V voice, P person, S se-
mantic feature.
3.1.2. Arguments associated with nouns
N number, G gender, D definite or in-
definite determination, I:' person, S seman-
tic feature.
3.1.3. Arguments associated with pronouns
N number, G gender, P person.
M is an a r g u m e n t associated with senre
non-terminals to test the possibility of
m o d i f y i n g a verb witll objects.
3.2. Use of semantic features to reduce
ambiguity in Arabic senstences.
Semantic features art, used with verbs
and nouns in order to test the subject verb v,~
semantic agreement.
The use of the described semantic fea-
tures in the developed grammar helps in cop sp .-
the diifferentiation between the subject
and the object in Arabic sentences, since it cop v
is not possible on purely grammatical ba-
sis (except in some exceptional cases) to I
differentiate between them. PP

3.3. Examples
/\
np np np p
In this section, examples of the syntac-
tic structures of a nominal sentence and a
verbal sentence according to the devel-
I r I L

oped g r a m m a r are given.

the w a t e r the child the h o u s e in drinks
3.3.1. E x a m p l e o f a n o m i n a l s e n t e n c e :

4. Conclusiml
Which means: This grammar has been implemented in
a syntactic analyzer [8] developed in Pro-
the big dog is in the garden.
log on a 1'C/XT-286 and tested on a large
In arabic, the definite article is a prefix, number of Arabic sentences.
there is no copulative verb and direction
It is hoped that the developed grammar
of writing is from right to left.
will contribute to the efforts undertaken
recently in the Arab countries towards the
SIS development of a comprehensive, agreed
/\ upon, formal grammar for Arabic syntax.

pFp 7 p References
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[2l AI-Khuli M.'A contrastive transformational gram-
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~ p ad} noun }3] Ayoub G.'Structure de la phrase verbale en Arabe

standard', Ph.D., in: Analysis/Theories, 1981.
14l Fehri F. 'Complementation ct amophore en Arabe
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I I I I [5] Owens J.'Structure, (:lass and Dependency: Modern
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3.3.2. E x a m p l e of a v e r b a l s e n t e n c e : [71 Pereira F., Warren D 'Definite clause grammar for
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Which means: [8] Hisham E1-Shishiny. 'A syntactic analyzer for Ara-
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1989.

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